The air in the office was thick with tension, a mix of frustration, exhaustion, and the faint aroma of coffee. The whiteboard at the center of the room was covered in names, photos, and red string connecting points that led nowhere. Every time someone tried to make sense of it, the connections unraveled into chaos.

Fifteen victims.

Each found in their own car.
Each with a mysterious red mark engraved on their wrist.
No fingerprints. No DNA. No witnesses.

And no apparent connection between the victims.

The victims were as varied as the professions they held: a schoolboy, an artist, a news reporter, a doctor, a pilot, a railway conductor, a driver, a teacher, a traffic police officer, an engineer, an AI specialist, a data analyst, a farmer, an actor, and finally, a CIA agent.

Bang Chan stood in front of the whiteboard, his fingers gripping the marker as he glared at the evidence. His dimpled smile, usually a source of comfort for the team, had vanished. He ran a hand through his hair, groaning under his breath. "There's got to be something. We're missing it. I know we are."

Felix and I.N sat at the table nearby, each surrounded by empty coffee cups. Felix leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes, while I.N stared at his laptop screen, his fingers hesitating over the keyboard.

"I don't even know what I'm looking for anymore," I.N muttered, leaning his head back with a groan.

"Another cup?" Felix offered, though his voice lacked its usual cheer.

"You're both going to crash if you keep chugging caffeine like that," Y/N called over, her tone sharp but tinged with concern. She was across the room with Lee Know, Seungmin, and Changbin, all of them at the makeshift gym space in the corner. The rhythmic thuds of punches hitting a punching bag filled the silence as they worked out to release their stress.

Changbin wiped the sweat off his brow, his breathing heavy. "Honestly, this case is gonna kill us before the killer gets anyone else."

Seungmin, who was doing push-ups with perfect form, glanced up with his signature sass. "Maybe if everyone stopped treating the coffee pot like a lifeline and actually focused, we'd solve this faster."

Lee Know smirked as he shadowboxed nearby. "And maybe if someone stopped being a know-it-all, we'd all be less tempted to strangle each other."

"Focus, people," Y/N snapped, punching the bag with renewed force. "We're on edge because we're not seeing the bigger picture. There's always a pattern. We just haven't found it yet."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Han and Hyunjin were huddled around Han's gaming laptop, taking a quick break.

"Headshot!" Han exclaimed, leaning back with a grin.

Hyunjin gave him a high-five, laughing. "We might not solve the case, but at least we're undefeated in this game."

Bang Chan turned around, fixing them with a glare. "If you two don't stop playing in the middle of a crisis, I swear I'm sending you both to fieldwork in Antarctica."

Han snorted. "Relax, hyung. It's just a five-minute break."

"Fifteen," Seungmin corrected from across the room, his tone dry as ever.

Chan groaned again, pacing back to his desk. His gaze lingered on the crime scene photos spread out in front of him, each victim's lifeless face staring back as if mocking him.

"What connects them?" he muttered, almost to himself. His voice was strained, heavy with the weight of the unsolved mystery. "Why these people? Why these professions? And what the hell is the red mark?"

The room fell silent for a moment, everyone's mind spiraling into the same endless loop of questions.

Hyunjin broke the silence, tossing a crumpled piece of paper into the trash. "You think it's random? Just some psycho picking people for no reason?"

"No," Chan said firmly, slamming his palm against the desk. "It's never random. There's always a reason. We're just not seeing it yet."

Y/N wiped the sweat from her brow and grabbed a bottle of water. "Then maybe we need to stop looking at them as individuals and start seeing them as pieces of the same puzzle. What if the connection isn't who they are, but something they did? Something they were all part of?"

Lee Know paused mid-punch, his brow furrowing. "Like what? A secret group? A shared event? A job they all crossed paths on?"

"Or," Seungmin added as he stood, his sharp mind already running with the idea, "something they knew. What if they were silenced because they knew too much?"

The team exchanged glances, the faint spark of hope igniting again.

Bang Chan's eyes lit up, his frustration momentarily replaced by determination. "Alright. Let's dig deeper. Background checks on all the victims. Everything from their pasts—where they worked, who they talked to, even their social media interactions. If there's a thread connecting them, we'll find it."

As the team scattered back to their workstations, the tension in the room shifted. It wasn't gone, but it was no longer suffocating. The pieces were still missing, but for the first time in days, they felt like they were on the verge of something.

Bang Chan grabbed a fresh marker and began jotting down new notes on the board. "Let's crack this case. No one's going home until we do."